Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

Tag Archives: Socialism

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, August 23, 2016:

Massachusetts is now the 35th state to regulate ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft, but with a vengeance not seen elsewhere: A portion of a new 20-cent tax per ride will be used to fund improvements for the old taxi cartel.

First, the new tax is not called a “tax” but a “fee.” Second, the tax won’t be charged either to the driver or to his customer, but to the ride-sharing company itself. Third,

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, August 15, 2016:

Nicolas Maduro

Marisol Sayago, a 65-year-old pensioner living in San Cristobal, Venezuela, traveled 40 miles on Saturday to buy 15 rolls of toilet paper. Crossing the border into Colombia, she did what shopping she could on her limited pension check in shops in Cucuta, saying, “It’s not economical, but what else can I do? Over there [pointing back across the bridge to Venezuela] you can’t find anything.”

Sayago was joined by an estimated 54,000 other Venezuelans suffering under the socialist regime of her country’s Marxist president, Nicolas Maduro (shown).

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, July 29, 2016:

For at least the last two years, Venezuela’s Marxist President, Nicolas Maduro, has claimed that part of his problems stem from interventions planned by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). And for years most commentators and observers have written off those claims as more Marxist madness voiced by a dictator completely infused with paranoia.

However, analysts at the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG), headquartered in Montreal since 2001, have been watching and reporting on those plans by both the CIA and U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). If their research is accurate, and the protests in Caracas and three other cities in Venezuela turn sufficiently violent and bloody, the CIA may

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 15, 2016:

Ida May Fuller, holding the first check from the Social Security Administration

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published its annual report on the country’s long-term budgetary and financial outlook. One need only to see the chart on Page One of the report to see why CBO’s Justin Bogle said the outlook was “grim”: It shows government spending growing so much more quickly than anticipated revenues that annual deficits will likely triple in the next 30 years, if not sooner. Bogle called this scenario unsustainable.

For the first time, the CBO built into its assumptions the projected impact of ObamaCare, the country’s declining birth rate, the explosion of Baby Boomers demanding benefits from Social Security and Medicare over that period, plus Boomers’ increasing life expectancies and the increasing costs of providing them healthcare along the way.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, June 17, 2016:

Another version of the flag of Animal Farm, based on the flag of the Soviet Union. Hoof and horn symbol created by Al2.

On Monday OPEC gave Venezuela more bad news: Oil production fell another 120,000 barrels a day in May, putting further pressure on the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro to pay its bills and maintain order. On Tuesday more than 400 citizens of Cumana, a city of 800,000 a few hundred miles west of Caracas, were arrested following another food riot.

On Thursday the British tabloid Daily Mail published a dozen pictures of the wealthy elite enjoying themselves at the opulent Caracas Country Club where membership costs $110,000. The slums where the masses are starving can be seen in the background.

The contrast, startling as it was, illustrates how socialism — called Chavismo in “honor” of former president Hugo Chavez — ultimately decimates the middle class and

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, June 6, 2016:

In a breathtaking reversal that far-left progressives are calling a victory, President Obama said in a speech in Elkhart, Indiana, on Wednesday that Social Security benefits should be expanded and made more “generous”:

And then we have to tackle retirement security. That’s something that keeps a lot of people up at night. … Let’s face it — a lot of Americans don’t have retirement savings. Even if they’ve got an account set up, they just don’t have enough money at the end of the month to save as much as they’d like because they’re just barely paying the bills. Fewer and fewer people have pensions they can really count on, which is why Social Security is more important than ever.

We can’t afford to weaken Social Security. We should be strengthening Social Security. And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term health, it’s time we finally made Social Security more generous and increased its benefits so that today’s retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they’ve earned. And we could start paying for it by asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute a little bit more. They can afford it. I can afford it.

Following President Obama’s statement last Wednesday that Social Security benefits ought to be expanded and made more “generous,” someone at the Washington Post thought it would be a good idea to tout the wonders of that welfare state program. Rather than pick someone with some credentials as an economist, even a liberal one, the Post instead picked Jared Bernstein (above) to do the honors. Which he did:

Word got out that there would be chicken for sale at the Central Madeirense supermarket in Guarenas, Venezuela, on Friday, so Kattya Alonzo got there at 4 a.m. The line of others already snaked around the block, waiting for the delivery trucks to arrive.

But when the trucks arrived at 6:30, the national guardsmen monitoring the crowd sensed the possibility of a riot and ordered the trucks to move on. The people waiting in line turned ugly and

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 18, 2016:

U.S. intelligence officials warned on May 14 that Venezuela is descending into economic and political chaos that is likely to end in street violence, military suppression of citizens’ rights, and a possible coup to remove President Nicolás Maduro.

How much of that reflects CIA interventions to keep the crisis somewhat under control is an open question. But one of those anonymous “intelligence officials” told the Wall Street Journal that “[our] goal is to mitigate the crisis that they’re experiencing. It’s in the United States’ interest that Venezuela not bottom out.”

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, May 16, 2016:

Upon taking over Brazil’s presidency from disgraced former President Dilma Rousseff on Thursday, interim president Michel Temer asked his skeptical citizenry to “trust” him, saying that his new administration would be Brazil’s “salvation”:

Trust me. Trust the values of our people and our ability to recuperate the economy…. It is essential to rebuild the credibility of the country abroad to attract new investments and get the economy growing again…. It is urgent to restore peace and unite Brazil. We must form a government that will save the nation…. It’s urgent to seek the unity of Brazil. We urgently need a government of national salivation.

Even if he truly intended to do any of that, the challenges he faces almost defy description.

Last week T. Boone Pickens, chairman of hedge fund BP Capital Management and with a personal net worth estimated at about a billion dollars, endorsed Donald Trump and offered to host some fundraisers for him.

The big news came on Friday when Sheldon Adelson (shown), chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and with a personal net worth estimated at more than $25 billion, published his endorsement of Donald Trump in the Washington Post. That was followed up by revelations from insiders to the New York Times that he will put his money where his mouth is, to the tune of $100 million. That’s an amount equal to the total Adelson contributed to 34 Republican campaigns in 2012, only this year he will be focusing his largesse almost exclusively on getting Trump elected in November.

Adelson explained his reasoning and urged other Republicans to get on board as well:

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, April 15, 2016:

Dilma Rousseff)

As the political implosion in Brazil continues, one is forced to ask: what’s next? Who will step to the plate once Rousseff is gone? Are there true statesmen waiting in the wings to right the foundering Brazilian ship of state and steer it away for the shoals of socialism?

This could be Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s last week in office.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is running out of time, support and friends.

A protégé of former President Lula, also of the Workers Party, Rousseff served in his cabinet as finance minister. She also chaired the board of Petrobras, the Brazilian-owned oil company that is being investigated for various pay-to-play schemes that rewarded both politicians and Petrobras executives handsomely. With her polling numbers just above single digits, she just can’t seem to catch a break. Her biggest problem seems to be that, as president, she is a prime target for a country’s citizenry who, after 13 years of rule by the hard-core left-wing Workers’ Party, are finally giving up on her. In fact,

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, April 8, 2016:

In the grand scheme of things, New York Democrat Senator Charles Schumer’s excessive anti-gun rant at his news conference on Monday means nothing at all. But as a peek into his ideology, background, and networks, it reveals a great deal about the man next in line to replace Harry Reid as the Senate Minority Leader in next year’s Congress.

It was 57 years ago at the Indianapolis home of Miss Marguerite Dice when businessman Robert Welch began his marathon two-day lecture that launched The John Birch Society. There were 11 friends and business associates present and they listened intently as the philosopher-historian and great lover of America told them during 17 hours why they should join with him in an organization designed to preserve the American dream. Most agreed on the spot to be the Society’s first members and the organization was born on December 9, 1958.

A child prodigy who had read a nine-volume history of the world at age seven and asked for more, Welch was

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, November 3, 2015:

The 2010 Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom.

The latest report from the Cato Institute comes on top of a long and increasingly unhappy series of reports on freedom’s decline in America. Enitled the “Economic Freedom of the World” and updated with the latest data available (through 2013), the report ranks the United States in 16th position, down from second place when the index was first published in 2000. The United States has fallen behind such countries as New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritius, Jordan, Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Chile.

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 17, 2015:

A recent spate of reports, analyses, and indexes continue to confirm the decline of personal and economic freedom in the United States. The Fifth Annual report from the Fraser Institute, “The Human Freedom Index” published last month shows the U.S. falling from 17th place worldwide to 20th in the areas of personal, civil, and economic freedom.

Estimates that price inflation in Venezuela is running between 10 and 20 percent a month are too low if one looks at the black market there. By putting price controls on essentials such as personal care items and medicines, President Nicolas Madura (pictured), a protégé of Marxist Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s previous president, has guaranteed at least two things: shortages and rationing. A healthy but very expensive black market has sprung up to meet consumer needs for items such as chickens, medicines, and toilet paper.

In that black, or free, market, Venezuelan women were shocked to find that the price of tampons and other sanitary supplies jumped